Fly Caster

If the rangy cadets of St. John's Military Academy at Delafield, Wis., are very, very good boys this summer, apart from their religious duties of attending evensong five times a week and chapel on Sundays, they will learn quite a lot about fly-and bait-casting. For last week that famed itinerant casting-expert "Smiling Bill" Vogt said definitely that during July & August he would show St. John's cadets how he works. He has signed a performance contract with Col. Roy Felton Farrand, St. John's graduate and president.* "Smiling Bill" Vogt is a hulky six-footer with a tongue glib to romanticize about the outdoors. Years ago he used to fish a lot and yarn a lot. Now he fishes for spells and lectures for hours. He has written a book, Bait-Casting, published by Longmans, Green in ordinary and de luxe binding. He is about to publish another. "Smiling Bill" Vogt is one of those rare men who have almost precise coordination of sight, thought and movement. He has a powerful wrist and a leathery thumb which let him dispense with reel brakes, drags or level winding devices. He can hold a fish even if its fight bends his rod nearly double. At 75 feet with a fly-rod and line he can slice a peeled banana or flick ashes from a cigaret. At 50 to 150 feet, aiming at 2-in. blocks bobbing in water, he has scored eight hits to seven by a crack rifle shot. With both bait-and fly-casting tackle he has caught muskrats, beavers, porcupines, coons, gophers, gulls, woodpeckers, quail, loons, bitterns, mud-hens. Because game-fish judge bait principally by sight rather than smell, he has cast an onion and caught a fish. He has caught bass with carrots, parsnips, beets, frankfurters, potatoes, corn-on-cob, string beans, cherries.

At an airdrome in Wichita, Kan., skeptics once doubted that he had really snared ducks flying at 100 m. p. h. 50 to 100 ft. above the ground. To an airplane he tastened a 50-ft. cord, a 1-ft. string, an old black sock, 18 in. long, 4 in. in diameter. The plane then swooped in an arc 100 ft. above him, the sock streaking out behind it. With a 5 1/2-ft. bait-casting rod and a line with a nine-hook plug, he hooked the sock and jerked it from the string on three out of five tries.

* Not to be confused with any of the other pedagogic Farrands (see p. 51).